Day 1 Didn't Tell Us Too Much About Day 2 Of Same-Sex Marriage Cases

An artist's sketch of the scene inside the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Reuters /Landov

As we wait for the Supreme Court to convene again at 10 a.m. ET and begin the second of two historic days of oral arguments focusing on legal issues surrounding same-sex marriage, there's a natural question:

"Except possibly for the fact that there are some people on the court who view same-sex marriage as so new that the democratic process should deal with it, not judges," Nina said, it's unlikely the themes that come up during Wednesday's oral argument will be the same as those the justices zeroed in on Tuesday.

Wednesday's case — a challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act — "is a much clearer question of federal benefits applied to people who are married in states where [same-sex] marriage is legal and the democratic process has played out, at least at the state level," Nina said. "The question is whether at the federal level, the federal government can deny those couples the same benefits that the federal government gives to heterosexual couples."